Fallen Hero, Beloved Friend
by JL Wrighton
Summary: He always wanted to be there, to catch her.


**So this story was actually finished several months ago. But unfortunately for me, it was a story that was connected to a guy who I've fallen apart from. And he's read it and it was just too close to touch for a long time. Anyway, it's up now, and I'd like to know what you think about it. I've always wondered how Wally must feel, losing his best friend and sister like that. I know it would've killed me. But what if he lost her permenently? How would he take it?**

It had been just another day, just another mission. Take care of the bad guys, be back home in time for lunch. Clayface was tearing up downtown Portland Oregon. But Clayface had taken some kind of serum, and by the time they heard about it, he was as tall as the 20 story building next to him.

They had sent two teams to handle him, Shayera, Vigilante and Captain Atom on one team, with Green Arrow, Flash and Stargirl on the other. Shayera had briefed them on the way there. Vigilante was piloting, and she had stayed near the front to keep an eye on him.

"Whatever he's taken in very unstable. The chemical reaction that does this only last's an hour or so. All we have to do is keep him from doing too much damage."

It had been going very well. Some of the local firemen had been hard at work already. Clayface had trouble holding together when wet and the fire hoses were going a long way for them. The supers joined in, tearing through his limbs over and over, to slow him down and give locals time to evacuate the buildings. Vigilante and Green Arrow, the only two who couldn't fly, were targeting his feet, Stargirl and Shayera kept blasting his hands and Flash and Captain Atom double-teamed his chest.

It had been working. Since they got there, he hadn't moved ten feet forwards or backwards and a satellite view told them he was already getting smaller. Flash stopped for a second on his trip, running up the side of a corporate building and launching himself through Clayface's chest. He leaned back to see how the girl's up top were doing, and heard a scream as Shayera pushed Stargirl out of the way, being completely engulfed in clay that quickly hardened to rock. He saw Clayface's evil grin, as he held up the egg-shaped mass, throwing it as far as he could, which took it out of Flash's sight. "I'm coming!" Flash yelled into his comm-link. "J'onn, where's she going?" With J'onn guiding him, he quickly gained on the rock, following its arc a mile above him. "Shayera? Are you there?"

There was silence for a moment. "Wally? J'onn's moved us to a private channel. I'm going to die."

"No, I'm going to catch you. Just hang on, and stay calm."

"Wally, listen. The side of my skull is crushed, I can't move my left side, and there's a lot of blood. Please listen to me."

"Thank you. Thank you for being there for me, and for believing in me, even after everything I've done. Thank you for," she gulped, "A love I didn't know how to return. I do not know what I am going to. Thanagar doesn't have an afterlife." Her breathing now came in gasps and she coughed between words. Wherever I am, whatever I become, I will miss you, and hopefully, I will see you soon."

"Goodbye Shayera."

"Bye Wally." It was hardly more than a whisper now.

"She's gone." J'onn said.

He wasn't more than twelve feet away when it hit the ground, shattering to pieces. In the moment as it crossed in front of the sun, he saw a brilliant flash of light, and knew, deep down that she was gone, really gone this time.

The impact shook the ground, but she didn't move. He knelt down next to her, brushing the dried dirt off her face. Her mace was sitting on her chest as he cradled her in his arms.

There was no pulse, nothing to hear the silence out here. Shayera had always had a particularly loud heartbeat, but now, nothing. Nothing to say she was still alive.

He stood, arranging her head onto his shoulder. She had been right. Blood had run from her head almost to her knees, now drying into a crusty brown. Flash did his best to sound calm, as cries of disbelief from League members broke out on the comm. "J'onn? Get us outta here."

There was the nanosecond of transfer and he was standing in Shayera's room. He laid her out on the bed, pulling the sheet up to her chest to hide most of the blood. Diana came in, tears already filling her eyes. "Take her." Flash muttered, pushing out the door. He ran down to the transporter, typing in his private code, the one that would take him home.

There he tore off the costume, throwing it against the wall, pulling on some clothes from off the floor. There was a strange calm inside him, as though this was just a dream. He could wake up in at minute. There was no mission. Shayera would be sitting in her reading those language books again. He left the apartment building at a run, not a super run, just a run. He kept going, until Central City disappeared behind him and kept at it, until the sun was almost gone from the sky, and Gotham City showed up at the end of the highway. He ran till he found the cliffs and beat a track up the mile-long driveway to the Wayne Mansion. Alfred Pennyworth opened the door before he could knock and led him to the kitchen. Wally collapsed into a chair, watch blearily as Alfred put a kettle to boil for his tea and pulled out one of Dick's Bud Light's for Wally. He paused for a moment, holding the bottle opener. "She's…deceased?" He asked, aged voice cracking softly. "Gone." Wally's voice was flat. The hand that held the bottle opener tightened for a moment, the knuckles white, and then the door slammed open.

Bruce stood there, eyes taking in the scene, and then walked over to Wally, laying a hand briefly on his shoulder. "I'm sorry."He sat down opposite Wally, accepting water from Alfred, who sat down at the last chair with his tea. The three men sat in silence, each lost in their own thoughts. "How do you move on?"Wally asked, breaking the monotony of the clock on the wall. Bruce snorted disdainfully. "Move on? You're never going to move on completely. I guarantee that. You build on it, pretend it's not there some days, but you never really move on. You learn how to let it be in your life, without becoming you life."

Wally looked out the bay window to the sunset. "I don't think I would want to forget."

"Shayera was one of the bravest warriors I've ever known. She could fight for all the right things in the world, whether she was wanted or not. She will be missed, and she will remain in many of our hearts."Aquaman finished and Superman stood, taking his place at the microphone.

"Thank you Aquaman. Before we close, I'd like to thank everyone that's shown up. She wouldn't want so much fuss over her." He waited while the slightest of laughs blew through the crowd. "But Shayera affected all of our lives in one way or another. As Aquaman said, she will be missed."

Flash sat on the stage, next to a quietly crying Diana and a blank-faced John. Wally had refused, point-blank to bury her anywhere but Central City. She had done a lot of volunteer work there and he could keep an eye on her gravesite, to keep others from defacing it.

So many people had come. Civilians whose lives she saved, foreign dignitaries she had taken turns protecting at some point, the entire League, and several rows worth of reporters, all whom were writing and snapping pictures. Old friends and people who hadn't been seen in public for years came, and sat in the back. Finally, and quietly ignored, a dozen or so villains who she had done a good turn a few times watched from the alleys and rooftops across the street.

Now was the hardest part. They had agreed that Shayera wouldn't want to be in a hearse, having enough problems with closed up places anyway. Vigilante had offered his bike and they had attached a small trailer to the back. It was just large enough to hold the coffin, so it wouldn't get jostled around on the short trip to the cemetery. Flash stood, taking the front left side. Amazo took the front right, with John and Aquaman in the middle, and Superman and J'onn on the back.

The crowd stood as they walked down the long aisle, and they placed the coffin in the tiny trailer, where Vigilante had already started the bike. The crowd followed behind the coffin in the half-mile walk, in absolute silence. The gravestone was pure black marble, with steel embedded in it, to read her name birth and death. Fallen Hero and Beloved Friend it said. They lowered the coffin into the ground and the reporters had stepped to one side as the League members each put a handful of dirt in the ground. There were so many that coffin was quickly covered and was almost completely buried when several onlookers gasped. The villains who had previously waited in the dark for the service to be over had walked up to the crowd as they had watched. "May we?" Poison Ivy asked for the group. At Superman's nod, they stepped forward as a group, quickly adding their handfuls to the others, and leaving the cemetery. The crowd began to dissipate, voices filling the air as heroes began to answer questions from the reporters. Knowing how many would be there, J'onn had held a seminar for all League members, telling them all the appropriate answers to the questions they would be plied with.

Wally stood by the grave, wishing to be away from here, yet not wanting to leave her. "She's never really gone you know." J'onn stood behind him, having walked up with Flash's realization. Flash turned to him. "She's six feet under the ground. How can she not be gone?"

J'onn moved like he was about to comfort him, but checked himself. "She's always in your heart. Our friends are never too far gone that we cannot find them there."


End file.
